What's the difference between piquancy and sharpness?

Piquancy


Definition:

  • (n.) The quality or state of being piquant.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Labour will then be challenged – remorselessly, day after day – to back these measures or face that most familiar of charges: that it is planning a tax bombshell (with the added piquancy that this time the increase is needed simply to pour money into what will be billed as a broken welfare system).
  • (2) It will also add piquancy to the second stage of Lord Justice Leveson's inquiry that reconvenes at the end of this month and will examine "the relationships between the press and police and the extent to which that has operated in the public interest".
  • (3) This determination to acknowledge other people's existence is not unique to France, though it does gain piquancy from British moans about the "rude" French.
  • (4) What's more, it has the added piquancy of righting a Labour wrong – drawing attention to the past just when Miliband will want to be focused on the future.
  • (5) Otto Rehhagel, the German coach who led the Greek side to a surprise victory at Euro 2004 and says "part of my heart is still Greek", added to the piquancy by declaring that when "Greeks have faith, they fear no one.
  • (6) There is a delicious piquancy to her act of rebellion – cue Twitter fantasies that her wayward son faces a maternal dressing down over Sure Start cuts, and might even be sent to the “naughty step”.
  • (7) Airborne chemicals can stimulate the CCS through the ocular, nasal, and respiratory mucosae, evoking different pungent sensations, for example, stinging, irritation, burning, piquancy, prickling, freshness, and tingling.
  • (8) The row has added piquancy because Iran Street in the Yemeni capital was originally given the name in honour of a visit by Mohammad Khatami, the two-term reformist president who preceded Ahmadinejad.Sana'a city council gave in to popular pressure because of Iran's alleged support for the Houthis – which is denied both by the rebels and by Tehran.
  • (9) Will the leadership debates take on a new piquancy when politics suddenly looks like the only answer?
  • (10) For sure, the day's main conversation, here as elsewhere, may have been on the all-German ascendancy of Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich, and the opening of a new front in Europe, but locally (and for New York, the local is the global), the exhibition game had been given added piquancy by the news this week that City had teamed up with the Yankees to form New York City FC .

Sharpness


Definition:

  • (n.) The quality or condition of being sharp; keenness; acuteness.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Basal 20 alpha DHP levels remained low until a sharp rise at mid pro-oestrus.
  • (2) Whole-virus vaccines prepared by Merck Sharp and Dohme (West Point, Pa.) and Merrell-National Laboratories (Cincinnati, Ohio) and subunit vaccines prepared by Parke, Davis and Company (Detroit, Mich.) and Wyeth Laboratories (Philadelphia, Pa.) were given intramuscularly in concentrations of 800, 400, or 200 chick cell-agglutinating units per dose.
  • (3) Gonadectomy of females was accompanied by changes in the activity of individual HAS links in different direction--some reduction of ACTH in the hypophysis, a sharp and significant fall of the peripheral blood glucocorticoid level and a marked significant elevation of hydrococortisone production in the adrenal cortex in vitro.
  • (4) The University of the Arts London and Sunderland, Sheffield Hallam, Manchester Met and Leeds Met university have also experienced sharp declines in applications.
  • (5) A sharp decrease in oxygen uptake occurred in Neurospora crassa cells that were transferred from 30 degrees C to 45 degrees C, and the respiration that resumed later at 45 degrees C was cyanide-insensitive.
  • (6) In contrast to findings in the rat and dog, no sharp drop but a gradual fall in CLi was observed at decreasing FENa values down to 0.02%.
  • (7) A more specific differentiation, as indicated by the sharp increase in GAD levels which was concurrent with an increase in interneuronal contacts, lagged behind the initial growth.
  • (8) It appears that the decline in plasma IGF-I lags considerably behind the sharp fall in plasma GH levels and expression of hepatic IGF-I mRNA.
  • (9) Supplementation of Mg resulted in a sharp increase in serum PTH level with a rapid disappearance of the dissociation between the two immunoassays of PTH.
  • (10) A.CA animals were extremely susceptible, showing a sharp and sustained increase in parasitemia starting on day 12, followed by death no later than day 15 post-inoculation.
  • (11) There was a sharp transition with actin nearly saturated with S1: when the S1 to actin ratio was low, the kinetics were fast (K1 greater than 300 microM, k2 greater than 40 s-1); when it was high, they were slow (K1 = 14 microM, k2 = 2 s-1).
  • (12) Low calcium causes an increase in optimum frequency, a decrease in current threshold, and an increase in sharpness of tuning in both real axons and axons computed according to the Hodgkin-Huxley formulation; high calcium causes opposite effects.
  • (13) The Tea Party movement has turned climate denial into a litmus test of conservative credentials – and that has made climate change one of the most sharp divisions between Obama and Romney.
  • (14) The presence in lamprey kidney of a loop which is similar to Henle's loop in mammals and birds indicates that the development of the system of osmotic concentration conditioned by the formation in the kidney of the medulla and from a sharp increase in renal arterial blood supply.
  • (15) There is no longer a sharp dividing line between working and rentiering.
  • (16) We are going to see a sharp fall unless sellers hold the sector up by making aggressive offers.
  • (17) A sharp increase in the intensity of lipids biochemiluminiscence and decrease in the tissue homogenates biochemiluminiscence were observed during the period of progressive tumour growth on the 6-8 days following introduction of the virus.
  • (18) By no means is this a new theme, but it has taken on an added sharpness and urgency after the conferences.
  • (19) The blood lymphocytes were small with scanty cytoplasm, densely condensed nuclear chromatin, and deep clefts originating in sharp angles from the nuclear surface.
  • (20) In sharp contrast, the coverage provided by the various mainstream news channels and newspapers not only seems – with some exceptions – unresponsive and stilted, but often non-existent.

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